We got the Houston steer count data from the HLSR, it was 2,454. I’m not sure why it doesn’t come close to matching up with the breed counts that were posted at the show but it’s the official number so we’ve updated the list to reflect that.

The Heart O'Texas Fair had 417 market steers.

I’ve been told by several people that the number we were given by the Iowa State Fair was for more than just the market steers, which should be in the 300-400 head range.

Livestockjudging.com Sponsoring TJLA Points and Bonanza

Livestockjudging.com (which will have a lot more video/content later today) is sponsoring the TJLA livestock judging points chase and the Belt Buckle Bonanza livestock judging contest. We’ll be handing out t-shirts to the first 100 kids that register on Friday morning.

More on that will come later this week.

Brant Poe

I like the way he picks steers.

Something I Question

Some people's definition of the words "first" and "interactive".

Matt Lautner Blog

The links are on the right hand side of the front of this site but if you want updates on the Maine and Chi junior nationals, go visit his site, there are more than enough to keep you happy.

Speaking of that Junior National

Just how valuable is that semen tank they're raffling off getting?

Camp Cooley Ranch

If you had the money to buy it one of your staff has already told you about it, but Camp Cooley Ranch is not being foreclosed on and is for sale to the highest bidder.

If history holds true, this will be the first of three times the entire ranch will be sold off in the next two years.

I post this because it's time the rest of us just came out and said it. For a few years now we've all had to bite our tongues when you folks with Blackberries said you have a smart phone. We didn't want to be rude so we just sort of nodded and said "oh" while secretly wondering if you think the new stuff on AOL is cool.

Your phone is not really all that smart, at least compared to the rest of the class.

So, there, I said it, I'm glad we could have that conversation and still be friends.

But I was far from the first (you probably didn't see this kind of stuff because the internet is so hard to browse on your phone)...

Research In Motion is done. They’ll be bought in the next year or so, their products will roll into whoever buys them – Microsoft, most probably – and they’ll go the way of Nokia, Danger, and countless other mobile platforms. They’ll exist independently for a while and then be subsumed. It’s over.

My Texas A&M Agricultural Engineering diploma (signed by Robert Gates instead of Ray Bowen due to a mix up with a Texas Tech anthropology correspondence course)…that’s gone unused for eight years.

A framed copy of the Southern Livestock Standard with a write up on Simsteer.com, now Showcattle.com.

A big ass white board with some unfinished to do items that have been there so long I doubt they’ll erase.

A sheet of paper with the logos of all twelve of our websites…because I lose track sometimes.

Several press releases and magazine ads from companies that I use as competitive motivation.

A 27” flat screen television I convinced myself would keep me in the office more but has no doubt cost me several thousand dollars in lost productivity over the years.

And now this bad boy…

I’ve wanted one of those ever since the one I had in my living room in college was lost/stolen. I should have known it would disappear some day after I got three different offers from drunk south Texas friends to buy it.

I used to love going to the Union Stockyards with my dad if for no other reason than it was an adventure getting there through downtown San Antonio. Of course, that adventure required to get there with often run down cattle trailers is a big part of the reason it no longer exists and we don’t get to see the “over turned cattle trailer on the I-37/I-10 interchange” stories on the news here in San Antonio any more.

I hope all of you received the recent Maine Education flyer in the mail, but for those that have not heard about it, hear is what you are missing.

What: Maine Education is an event hosted by the Texas Maine Association to provide a learning experience not only to the youth in the Jr. Maine Association, but to the youth throughout Texas and its surrounding states. The event will include grooming/fitting demo provided by Sullivan Supplies “Stock Show U”, showmanship demo by the Allgood family, speakers from the National Maine Anjou Office, t-shirts, free BBQ dinner provided by Martindale Feed Mill, and great prizes to be raffled off, INCLUDING a heifer that is donated by Jerry Gibson of 4J Family Parnership.

When: September 24th, 2011. Registration will take place from noon to 1pm, with clinics to follow. Dinner around 5-6pm, along with social and a live fundraiser auction afterward, with proceeds going toward the National Jr. Maine Anjou Show and scholarships provided by the TMAA.

Where: Salt Creek Arena in Boyd, TX. Arena is located just South of the intersection of HWY 114 and FM 51 approximately 10 miles South of Decatur, TX, 25 miles North of Weatherford, TX, and 25 miles Northwest of Ft. Worth. Plenty of affordable lodging is available in Decatur, Rhome, and Weatherford.

Cost: FREE, and for all youth that attend will receive a raffle ticket for great prizes and the possibility of winning a heifer. Must be present to win! Additional raffle tickets can be purchased by youth, adults, or clubs.

Who: Open to all youth and adults involved in the cattle industry. FFA chapters and 4-H clubs encouraged to attend.

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As Maine Anjou Breeders in the state of Texas, I encourage all of you to make plans to attend this event. It will be a great way to socialize with fellow Texas breeders, meet lots of great young people from throughout the state, and to raise money to benefit the youth.

A display area will be set up to allow TMAA members to display cattle and get their herds noticed by the youth and adults attending the clinic. A nominal fee will be charge for displays to help cover the cost of the facility. Contact me if you are interested in displaying cattle at Maine Education.

The best way to keep up-to-date on Maine Education is to either “like” us on Facebook or visit its website. Check back regularly to see announcements of new speakers and sponsors, and some of the great items that will be raffled and auctioned off. Just reply to this email if you would like to be added to the Maine Education email list or would like to donate something to the fundraiser auction.

Various different shows claim to be the largest open show, largest junior show, largest on-site junior show, etc. What about the largest strictly market steer shows in the nation?

A couple weeks ago I sent Katie off on a mission to find out…

Houston Livestock and Rodeo 1,743

San Antonio Livestock Expo1,452

Rodeo Austin851

Iowa State Fair719

Oklahoma Youth Expo600

Heart O'Texas Fair 418

State Fair of Texas378

Arskarben341

Georgia National Livestock Show335

Amarillo Tri-State Fair317

South Dakota State Fair315

San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo314

Nebraska State Fair285

Panhandle South Plains Fair260

Tulsa State Fair254

Illinois State Fair200

Ohio State Fair190

Wisconsin State fair190

Indiana State Fair174

Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show 147

Keystone International Livestock Expo127

First things first, thank you everyone at the stock shows that provided the information and Katie for gathering it.

Second, yeah, we know there are some big time shows missing. We contacted a total of 41 different stock shows and heard back from 29. The only reason we have San Antonio and Houston is we got the information ourselves from the counts they posted or announced at their shows.

Ft Worth (who three different people have told me is extremely easy to work with) would rank #2 or #3 but just flat out didn’t give us any information despite repeated e-mails and conversations. We left messages for and emailed the people in charge of press at the Arizona National with no luck. The NAILE never got back to us. For one reason or another, we just weren’t able to get info from some shows.

If anybody has a source for how many market steers were at some of the shows we are missing (remember, we only count market steer shows, this doesn’t include prospect/feeder steers), or even if you know the reason some shows want to be secretive with this information, please let us know.

Observations…

If you didn’t already know, show steers are a pretty darn big deal down here in Texas. The top three (four if you count Ft Worth) steer shows are all restricted to only Texas kids.

Quantity and quality, while associated, are two different things when it comes to market steer shows. Some of the most prestigious steer shows, at least by the standards of the Midwest steer jocks and magazine ads, have less than 100 entries. Most people would consider a show like the National Western, which had 80 steers this year, to be one of the most prestigious market steer shows in the nation.

I’m not sure where to cut off the ranking because there are numerous county level shows that get 100-200 entries and including them in the list would make it a bit unwieldy. Prospect shows like the Bonanza would have come close to making the top ten. We tried to keep it to steer shows meant for mature steers instead of prospects but we have no experience with a good portion of these shows and if we added some that shouldn’t have been, our bad.

The showing of Austin is the most surprising thing to me on that list. Sometime in the early to mid-90s they were a very small show. They started a surprisingly effective and creative growth plan of allowing entries from all counties bordering them one year. The next year they allowed in the counties bordering those, the next the counties bordering those. Over time they grew to the point that if they aren’t already at the entire state of Texas, they’re just one or two panhandle counties away from it. That they’ve grown to #3 (again, missing Ft Worth which would almost certainly be #2 or #3) on this list is pretty darn impressive.

Have I mentioned how accurate a tool I think the drought monitor put out by UNL is?

Two weeks ago we were in our pens talking about how everyone called this one of the worst droughts ever and we were commenting on how it really hasn’t been as bad as two-years ago for us. This week things took a very solid turn for the worse as the small amount of remaining grass dried up in the heat. The drought monitor also moved us from D3 to D4 for the first time this year. It’s an amazingly responsive and accurate tool.

The previous record for the percentage of the nation in D4 level drought was right around 7%. Last week we rose from 7.8% to 9.03%.

Over the past few weeks we've been putting together a list of the largest market steer shows in the nation. While the majority of shows have provided information we haven't been able to contact the right people at a few. In one or two situations we were able to contact the right people but they didn't want to release the information for some reason.

Does anybody know what the market steer count was at Fort Worth, Houston, and/or Heart O'Texas this year?

When I was a kid I had two posters on my walls and neither one of them had a scantily clad woman on them. One was a Ty Murray poster and the other was a “Breeds of Cattle” poster.

Thankfully it was the late 80s-early 90s and there was actually some variety in that breeds of cattle poster. The Simmental was a red and white spotted bull, the Maine was red with white on his legs, and the Chianina was GASP white. Back then you were even able to walk around an open stock show and tell what breed you were looking at without looking at the banners.

While a person who has been around cattle a while can still tell the difference between the half dozen solid black breeds, how in the world are kids today supposed to learn the difference between breeds of cattle?

Also, make sure you check back in here next week. We’ve got two big things launching.

We’re losing a lease place we’ve run cattle on for ~20 years so we have to cut back on the herd. Unfortunately it wasn’t a surprise that we lost the place.

For 15 years my dad refused to upgrade the road fence because he knew the owner would take the place back for himself if he did. In March of 09 I finally got him to cave in and we rebuilt the road fence for safety reasons with an assurance from the owner that we’d have at a minimum three more years on the place. Well, since then the new neighbors have all decided to build new fence along the place (he doesn’t go halves on property line fence, “if you want to build a fence just build a fence, I don’t want anything to do with it”). So now that he has new fence on all four boundaries, like clockwork, he wants to start raising cattle on his own now and has kicked us off.

A farming community full of old German men is a tough contemporary group but he manages to rank #1 for the $AHole index.

Synopsis: ENSO-neutral conditions have developed and are expected to continue at least through the Northern Hemisphere summer 2011.

A transition from La Niña to ENSO-neutral conditions occurred during May 2011 as indicated by generally small sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies across the equatorial Pacific Ocean east of the Date Line (Fig. 1). The latest weekly Nino index values (Fig. 2) showed near-average SSTs in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (Niño-4 index of –0.2°C and Niño 3.4 index of –0.1°C), and above-average SSTs in the eastern equatorial Pacific (Niño-1+2 index of +0.7°C). The subsurface oceanic heat content anomalies (average temperatures in the upper 300m of the ocean, Fig. 3) remained elevated, but relatively constant during the month, reflecting a large area of above-average temperatures at depth (Fig. 4). Consistent with other transitions to ENSO-neutral conditions, the atmospheric circulation anomalies continued to show some features consistent with La Niña, albeit at weaker strength. Convection was enhanced over eastern Indonesia and suppressed over the central equatorial Pacific (Fig. 5). Also, anomalous low-level easterly and upper-level westerly winds weakened but persisted over the central Pacific. Collectively, these oceanic and atmospheric anomalies reflect a transition to ENSO-neutral conditions, but with lingering La Niña-like atmospheric impacts, particularly in the global Tropics.

I was in New York last week walking down a street in Chelsea when I encountered the largest rat I have ever seen. It was 30 feet tall. Fortunately, it was an advertising medium and not a live scavenger. It was one of the inflatable rats that unions have been using, and I was immediately drawn to it. As I approached the rat, a union member handed me a flier and explained the grievance he and his fellow members were there to tell people about. The rat made the moment memorable and created an instant connection between the protesters and me.

If someone had figured out a way to do that with a QR code, we would know it by now. We've seen them everywhere -- bathroom walls, billboards and rub-on tattoos -- tossed like digital spaghetti against a wall in hopes that some of it will stick, or click, to an ad. Overuse of a new technique is nothing new. New technology tends to follow a predictable path from discovery, to overuse and disillusionment, and eventually, a proper or right level of use. But in the case of QR codes, that "right level" is likely to be fairly low and short-lived. Because it's the marketers, not the customers, who are so enamored with it.

Now you can go to one page and see every video uploaded in the past week by virtually all of the channels that focus on cattle.

Currently it checks the Youtube channels of...

Diamond G Cattle

Brad Hook B.S.

Austin Cattle

CowboySales1

Goretska

Maximum Exposure

Fatsteer.com

BWOS Cattle

Angus Productions

American Hereford Association

Brahman Journal

Collins Cattle Service

Temple Grandin

RanchTV.org

Purina Mills TV

KW Design Group

Encore Visions

Elliot Show Cattle

ZNT Cattle

...but that's just a few channels I could think of this morning. I have no doubt I missed quite a few so please let me know (jeff@cattle.com or txt at 210-380-7459) if I missed yours. Almost assuredly it was meerly an oversight and there are about four I know of that I just couldn't find the channel for this morning.

In a nice change of pace from last year when our old clean up bull left nearly half the herd open, we preg checked the 70 exotic cows on Monday and only had one open that should have been bred.

We were a little gun shy this year for sure. We bought a bull from V8 and he was tested there in October, we tested him again in January, and we tested him again in March when a cow that shouldn’t have cycled was cycling (he actually got her bred that day).

Essentially, we spent a couple hundred redoing fertility tests that had just been done a few months earlier. Compare that to last year when saving a couple hundred cost us somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000 at commercial prices and it’s not that bad.

Correction on the EPD Posts

It’s been brought to my attention Hereford has a pretty darn good online search as well.

We didn’t have Beefmaster in the list of breeds, my fault.

First Politician’s Promise I Ever Heard

It came at a campaign stop for ag commissioner in either Poth or Kosciusko (two small Pollak Polish towns south of San Antonio) when I was about ten years old. A gentleman asked the guy speaking if he was really trying to become ag commissioner or if he was using it as just a stepping stone to higher office as had evidently been the case previously. The guy was very clear that his only goal was ag commissioner and he wasn’t a career politician trying to move on to a higher office.

In a nice change of pace from last year when our old clean up bull left nearly half the herd open, we preg checked the 70 exotic cows on Monday and only had one open that should have been bred.

We were a little gun shy this year for sure. We bought a bull from V8 and he was tested there in October, we tested him again in January, and we tested him again in March when a cow that shouldn’t have cycled was cycling (he actually got her bred that day).

Essentially, we spent a couple hundred redoing fertility tests that had just been done a few months earlier. Compare that to last year when saving a couple hundred cost us somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000 at commercial prices and it’s not that bad.

Correction on the EPD Posts

It’s been brought to my attention Hereford has a pretty darn good online search as well.

We didn’t have Beefmaster in the list of breeds, my fault.

First Politician’s Promise I Ever Heard

It came at a campaign stop for ag commissioner in either Poth or Kosciusko (two small Pollak Polish towns south of San Antonio) when I was about ten years old. A gentleman asked the guy speaking if he was really trying to become ag commissioner or if he was using it as just a stepping stone to higher office as had evidently been the case previously. The guy was very clear that his only goal was ag commissioner and he wasn’t a career politician trying to move on to a higher office.

My five favorite cattle of all time, only one makes the list because of anything useful…

#5 – Cow 122

The old girl never has a bull calf but she’s put every single one of her heifers into the top end of the replacement pen.

#4 – Grobbe Bull

He was a well-muscled Simmental bull that had just a touch of a mean streak to him.

He was also the first and only mature bull I’ve ever ridden.While we were supposed to be messing with the “show heifers” (really nothing more than commercial type Brangus heifers with papers) one summer, we got on a bull riding kick to break up the boredom.After we got tired of the cow from #3, we turned our attention to getting a real bull in the pen to ride.

The lead up the squeeze chute had a release that if you used your imagination worked as a bucking chute.The problem was that it also had a bar going straight across the top of it.The one time my brother tried to ride him he reared back in the ‘chute’ and hit his head on the bar.

When I later tried to ride him, I learned from our previous mistake and made sure I stayed low.I did actually get out of the chute but not for long.He didn’t get much air but did buck enough to throw me off and cause me to hit my head hard enough to black out for a few seconds.

He also threw my dad off a horse (the last time he’s ever been on a horse) when he got old and mean.Whether that moves him up or down the list depends on when you ask me.

#3 – Buddy

A twin bull calf that kicked off and was my first bottle calf.

If you had a bottle calf when you were a little kid, that should be more than enough of an explanation.If you didn’t, I’m sorry that your parents didn’t love you.

#2 – Blue

My first show heifer and the only cow I actually saddle broke.It got to the point that I could rig a halter and ride her around the pen like a green broke horse.She was actually the heifer we were supposed to be working with during #4 and #1.

It wasn’t until she stopped bucking when we’d try to ride her that I decided the foolishness from #4 was a good idea.

#1 – Blue’s Friend

Blue’s friend was a heifer we purchased alongside #3 from this list.She was mean but not quite fast enough to catch a 12-year-old kid.My brother and I made a game we called “bull fight” where we’d put her in the big working pen and kept score by seeing who could get her to charge and tap her on the forehead the most times.In hindsight it was simultaneously one of the dumbest and best ideas I ever had as a kid.

If you haven’t figured out yet that it isn't a good idea to tell your two young sons to “go work with the show heifer” when you leave them at home during the summer, I don’t know what to tell you.

I really didn't want to buy anything, twins + drought and all but did. Not that she was the best female by any stretch of the imagination but we got the only female we wanted, lot 431, for $2,000. For that price I'll take a seven year old American cow that's put out a reserve champion gert in Houston any day of the week.

I also get to feel like I'm a hero saving her from Oklahoma winters rather than the villian who is condemning an exotic to a life she never wanted in South Texas.

Quick, which breed do you think tracks way more EPDs and indexes than every other breed?

Angus 24

Simmental 16

Gelbvieh 16

Red Angus 15

Hereford 15

Limousin 14

Charolais 13

Shorthorn 12

Beefmaster 10

Brahman 10

Maine Anjou 10

Brangus 9

Chianina 9

Santa Gertrudis 9

Red Brangus 6

*Data based on the information we could find on each breed's website. PLEASE let us know of any errors.

I had Katie compile that information for another project I'm messing with but if you would have asked me to make that list purely based on stereotypes of breeds, I would have been pretty darn close.

The fact Angus tracks ten more EPDs than anybody else should be easy to predict for anybody who pays attention to any more than one breed. Right after that you have a group of breeds that have been pretty obvious in their attempts to promote themselves in a similar manner. Down the list are all the American breeds where buyers tend to care more about what they see with their eyes than the numbers on the paper. And of course Maine and Chianina are at the low end of the European/British groups.

Adobe Photoshop is expensive even for designers. For somebody that’s only trying to edit a few photos to upload, there’s absolutely no way for it to make sense. So what do you use instead? After my old computer went kaput last week and I haven’t found my Adobe licensing I had to figure that out this weekend and there’s one answer that rose to the top quite easily…Aviary.

Like many cool little tools of that nature, it doesn’t seem to work properly in Internet Explorer. However, you can do just about anything you’d need to do with a picture you snapped of a calf and want to upload to Steerplanet or Facebook.

I gritted my teeth and looked the other way the first ten times I saw that “elite directory of the showing community” tagline but it’s managed to find its way in front of me one too many times. You are not an “elite directory” if you have two cattle links in your directory and one of them is your own site.

Kris Black Sale

I’d say I’m disappointed that I don’t get to go watch this sale for the first time in four years but our cows are already brushing up on their leadership skills.

Blogging

I plan on getting back to a daily schedule again next week. I have been working on this site, it's just stuff you don't get to see yet.